Sorry but I beg to differ. I follow the rules to the letter and it has been far from easy. And I think it is obvious from the misadventures of others posted on this site about their residency experiences that I am not alone.
- Thread starter william webster
- Start date
Expired Residency ? RENEW IT !!
A year ago I had expired residency ( maybe 8 or 10 months expired ).
I got certificado de buena conducto using a mix of passport and cedula.
I paid at banreserva and gave my cedula number.
However the tribunal in Santiago said they should not have accepted an expired cedula.
Anyway I gave them a copy of my passport and they gave me my certificado de buena conducto.
Then when I submitted for residency renewal, I paid the regular fee + a couple thousand pesos of late fees.
Thank you for the helpful comment. This is what I was hoping for. I will walk down to my local BanReservas to request a Certificate and simply present my passport. No mention of a cedula. And yes, I understand that there will be late fees when I submit my application.
The new Fines
migracion.gob.do
PRÓRROGA DE ESTADÍA PARA TURISTAS - DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE MIGRACIÓN
Dirección General de Migración de la República Dominicana
migracion.gob.do
I agree. It may be slightly different for Americans as they continue to be US tax residents anyway and not sure they have a problem with travel.
Banreservas does not request it for you as far as I know. Never heard of that. They give you a receipt which you can take to one of the offices that issues them and request it there. There's one in Puerto Plata.
It is not correct to conflate people from non-tourist card countries with those from tourist card countries. They are treated differently. Venezuelans need a tourist visa since they cannot enter on a tourist card.
The DR does indeed treat people from different countries differently and does not care what the world thinks about that. Take the Haitians, please.
I asked the question of my auto insurance agent in Cabarete what would happen to someone who lived here for years, always entering on a tourist card with a US passport, and drove on a US license. Someone I know she also insures. I asked what happens if they have a serious auto accident.
Normally she answers any question quickly. This one she has not answered after I asked it a couple of times.
I asked the same question to my insurance a few ago before I began the residency process and before I had a Dominican drivers license. He told me that he had many clients without residency yet he had never encountered a problem with the insurance company denying a claim for those clients. He told me not to worry about it. But who knows, particularly if it is a large claim. Most insurance companies invoke every rule possible to reduce or avoid paying a claim, and certainly driving without a valid license would seem to be a legitimate reason for them to deny a claim. You just never know in this country.
Insurance companies are not going to quibble over paying a claim for a fender bender. A death could be a completely different story, especially of you are charged with vehicular homicide which might be considered a crime. Here in the DR, if you're a gringo, you are automatically at fault in almost all accidents.
Thanks for the clarification. Upon further reflection I think you are right. I think all Banreservas does is give you a receipt for payment of the Certificate. But I already have that. The government website quickly charged my ATM card and issued me a receipt before advising me that they would not issue a Certificate because my cedula is invalid.
In addition to dealing with the complications of an expired cedula, I see that this residency renewal procedure is getting very expensive. The fees have increased for everything. I added up the cost of the application fee, the application late fees, the repatriation insurance, the Certificate of Good Conduct, the cedula fee, the cedula late fees, the cost of gas and tolls, and the cost of a modest hotel room for 1 night. Everything totals about 28,000 pesos. And that's just for 1 year. And then add to that the cost of a return trip to Santo Domingo when they advise you that the application documents that they previously accepted are no longer acceptable because they changed their requirements (yes, that has happened). I'm not sure what the latest overstay fine schedule looks like but I'm sure it's a fraction of that amount. Like I said earlier, I need to reconsider the wisdom of this whole residency issue.
I just renewed my Temporary Residency two months ago and I didn't notice any increase in fees then. Total including the cedula was about 15,000 pesos. Permanent residency renewal is more. I always spend a night at a hotel, so that does have to be added in along with gas and tolls and meals.
Whether or not it's worth renewing sort of depends on your situation. If you want to give it a try, you can maybe get the carta de buena conducta at the Palacio de Justicia in Puerto Plata.
Whether or not it's worth renewing sort of depends on your situation. If you want to give it a try, you can maybe get the carta de buena conducta at the Palacio de Justicia in Puerto Plata.
I agree. Starting the Residency process the first time is so difficult that several people I know have just given up. And then if you are right with your financial calculation it's really expensive to renew each year. Plus, as in your case, it can get even more complicated if you have some legitimate reason to want to renew late.
No wonder many people just continue to pay the exit fines, especially those who do not live here full time.
Thanks again for the suggestion. Maybe I will do that. In the meantime I have sent an email message to migracion explaining my situation and asking for their advice. I will post here if I get any response.
In regards to the cost for renewing residency, I see that the 5000 peso application fee is now 7000, and the 500 peso per month late fee is now 700 per month. Those are pretty hefty increases for just one year and I assume that the cedula fee and cedula late fees have probably increased accordingly. I don't mind wasting 600 pesos for Certificate of Good Conduct, but I certainly don't want to waste $80 to $100 for the repatriation insurance unless I know that I am continuing go through with this process.
Actually that might be the primary motivation for continuing this process. After everything that I've gone through for the previous 4 years, it seems too bad to give up and throw in the towel in the 5th year.
Repatriation insurance is insurance to to pay for shipping your body back to your home country in case you get run over by a guagua or otherwise meet an untimely death. It's a scam but proof of this insurance from the Dominican government's designated provider is one of the documents that must be submitted with your application for temporary residence.
And of course it is only good for 1 year so you have to buy it every year that you renew your temporary residency.